Point blank vs Disposable heroes

A few of us at the club are big Iron Ivan fans. We’ve played quite a bit of DH for ww2 and it’s been a solid set of rules for us.

Phil got hold of the new Point Blank rules from the Iron Ivan stable and I reckon it’s the game I thought DH was! So far it’s been an excellent set of rules to play.

Point Blank operates at a smaller squad level than DH and works on actions assigned to individual figures rather than to whole squads. The game seems to be structured around a truer sense of fire and move, with suppressive fire proving the core mechanic of the game. Indeed casualties are tough to get, unlike with DH which can be somewhat bloody.

This is the big difference for me. I never really managed to get the fire and move tactic working effectively in DH. Sqauds would usually get stuck into a firefight with casualties quickly racking up on either side. MGs would hack down sqauds and buildings could be a nightmare to assault.

PB seems to nail it. The suppression mechanic and actions approach really delivers the fire and move tactic. Limited actions means you have to think hard about where you send your troops, but you can establish those important pins and take out the opposition. Pinning fire and flanking pay off.

That said, you go wondering in front of an MG in a prepared position and you are in for trouble. Volume of fire counts here to get the supressions and casualties. To take out a prepared position you need a lot of fire to gain the important pin, and once you have it you better be able to exploit it.

The games so far have been far more fluid than DH with both sides shifting and adjusting to the flow of the game.

We also now have the new Bolt Action rules from warlord, so it will be interesting to see how they compare. Some reports on all these systems up soon.

One thought on “Point blank vs Disposable heroes”

Sound really interesting, Tom – never really done the skimish level WWII thing, but at the company level i was never satisfied with the feel of fluid fire & move in any of the rulesets i played outside of Crossfire.

Really looking forward to trying Point Blank therefore – hopefully can do a Friday night game sometime!